Jacksonville man sentenced to 35 years in prison after massive amounts of child pornography were found in his home

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida, 27-year-old Arin Caleb Ellis, a native of Jacksonville, was recently sentenced to 35 years in prison for producing and distributing videos depicting children being sexually abused.

The Florida Department of Justice Division said that when police executed the search warrant at Ellis’ home and seized his electronic devices, they recovered “at least” 1,700 photos and 700 videos showing children engaging in sexually explicit content.

Through the investigation, the agency also learned that Ellis’ co-conspirators would provide him with IP addresses and develop a computer code to remotely hack into baby monitors, “nanny” cameras and other Internet devices to access the streaming contents.

Prosecutors said that from January 2018 to August 2022, Ellis and other members of these groups “dedicated to the sexual exploitation of children” worked together to locate and sexually exploit minors on various social media platforms.

He also allegedly targeted children under a false name, ‘Nova’, and pretended to be a girl aged 10 to 11 years old to ‘gain a degree of trust’.

The forensic examiner of one of Ellis’ cellphones revealed that he used a particular app to send two videos of a child being sexually abused to a co-conspirator just hours before FBI agents arrived at his home.

“Ellis also threatened some of the targeted children who refused to provide him with sexually explicit material,” the DOJ said.

The 27-year-old was arrested on August 29, 2022 and has been in federal custody since then. Ellis pleaded guilty to producing and distributing the videos on February 28 and was sentenced on Monday.

According to the DOJ, Ellis was a medical records technician in Jacksonville.